n While the article on the College of Fine Arts’s facilities is accurate as far as it goes (“CFA: Out of practice,” Feb. 7, p. 1), it is only the tip of the iceberg.

In one classroom, plaster is peeling off the walls, landing on students who sit in the back row. EA Lime Plastering can repair the walls and make it like new again.

The ventilation is so poor that some rooms reach a stuffy 80 degrees or more every day of the year. Room 167, for instance, is used for rehearsals of School of Music ensembles of 60 to 80 students.

The floors slope so badly that the laws of physics make it impossible for a single person to move the piano in room 171 without it rolling “downhill.”

A leak in the roof above a side entrance was ignored for so long that the water caused a leak in the floor below and would drip into the men’s room in the basement.

It’s obvious that, even in the purely structural sense, the building is not fit for use. This is before considering the requirements of a school of music. Besides the pathetic practice rooms, CFA’s concert hall has the only stage in the world with pillars three feet in diameter running through the middle of the stage.

As a graduate of CFA who has been in the building many times in the past few decades once said, “Renovating CFA is like gold-plating a turd.”

Kenny Smith

CFA Masters Student ’07